Plot thickens over FIFA member Warner's 2022 World Cup vote

Disgraced former FIFA executive member Jack Warner is widely believed to have voted for the United States to host the 2022 World Cup despite allegedly receiving huge payments from a Qatar company.

Documents appear to show Warner and family members were paid £1.2million by a firm controlled by the equally discredited Qatari Mohamed Bin Hammam, former Asian Football Confederation chief, shortly after the controversial Zurich vote in December 2010.

Plot: Jack Warner is believed to have voted for USA to host the 2022 World Cup

Prize: Qatar were awarded the right to host the 2022 World Cup in Zurich four years ago

But those involved in that unseemly World Cup bidding campaign are convinced that CONCACAF chief Warner supported the United States — part of the North, Central American and Caribbean confederation — in the secret 2022 World Cup ballot, with Qatar beating the USA 14-8 in the final round.

Warner and Bin Hammam, both banned from football for life after the bribes scandal around Bin Hammam’s aborted bid for the FIFA presidency in 2011, have been close for years, with Warner often taking big entourages to Asian confederation meetings.

Bin Hammam is also understood to have financially supported the CONCACAF regime and the new money trail is more likely to have been associated with Warner backing Bin Hammam’s failed attempt to usurp FIFA overlord Blatter than with the Qatar vote.

Although conspiracy theorists will not discount Warner taking Bin Hammam’s cash for working to persuade other less conflicted FIFA executive voters to back Qatar’s bid.

The FA have turned to Manchester United and Premiership Rugby to replace their two senior commercial executives, Peter Daire and Sean McAuliffe, who have left after a departmental restructuring.

Phil Barker has arrived at Wembley from Old Trafford and Dan Kiddle from PRL with their priority to find a new £9m-a-year FA Cup sponsor to succeed the departing Budweiser by the start of next season.

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew, who is serving a stadium ban for his headbutt on Hull’s David Meyler, was able to watch full coverage of his side’s defeat at Fulham on Sunday at his hotel despite the match not being televised live and none of the TV rights holders or Premier League Productions providing him a feed.

Pardew viewed the action with a club analyst via an online Scout7 streaming of the match. Scout7 are one of a number of sophisticated football systems companies employed by clubs for scouting information and detailed game analysis.

They have an agreement with the Premier League to film games provided it is for secure password-controlled football industry use only.

Absence: Alan Pardew is serving a ban after headbutting Hull midfielder David Meyler

Top jump trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies has distanced himself from double Grand National winning jockey Carl Llewellyn, who is now facing investigations from both Gloucester Police and the British Horseracing Authority over his use of the N-word at a Cheltenham preview evening.

Llewellyn is widely recognised as an assistant trainer to Twiston-Davies and was helping to prepare his horses at the Cheltenham Festival. But Twiston-Davies said yesterday: ‘How Carl behaves is nothing to do with me. He’s a freelance who does what he wants. He’s self-employed and helps me out sometimes.’ Both the BHA and Gloucester Police say they will be talking to Llewellyn.

Hot water: Carl Llewellyn is facing investigations over his use of the N-word during a Cheltenham preview

Grounds for concern

Brazil sports minister Aldo Rabelo’s rambling rhetoric fills no one with confidence that his chaotic country will be ready to host the World Cup in less than three months.

Rabelo announced in London on Tuesday that he has no doubts the three stadiums still being built will be finished in April or the beginning of May. Yet Rabelo had declared just as emphatically before the World Cup draw in December that everything would be completed by the end of January.

His explanation for that misguided forecast was that the crane had yet to collapse on to the Sao Paulo stadium roof when in fact it happened the week before. Rabelo then said he meant the findings from the accident at the Corinthians ground had not been known at that time.